Gothic Fiction Quotes

“I envy people that know love. That have someone who takes them as they are.”
― Jess C Scott, The Devilin Fey

“One hand was behind his back, and he held it out, presenting a bouquet of white and smoky purple lilies.

“They’re straight from the underworld, by the way. They are everlasting. They won’t die.”
― Jess C Scott, The Devilin Fey

“This is not written for the young or the light of heart, not for the tranquil species of men whose souls are content with the simple pleasures of family, church, or profession. Rather, I write to those beings like myself whose existence is compounded by a lurid intermingling of the dark and the
light; who can judge rationally and think with reason, yet who feel too keenly and churn with too great a passion; who have an incessant longing for happiness and yet are
shadowed by a deep and persistent melancholy—those who grasp gratification where they may, but find no lasting comfort for the soul.”
― B.E. Scully

“At its heart, Gothic Fiction is the introvert's "Hero's Journey" where heroes and heroines must navigate the uncharted territory of the mind in order to solve the mystery of their life's adventure.”
― Barrymore Tebbs

“No, I will not join your Civil War reenactment troupe.”
― Aaron A. A. Smith, Siren's Lament and Other Stories

“For the sake of your bright eyes, Jem Merlyn.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“Lady Dunreath, in the meantime, suffered torture; after she had seen Malvina turned from the abbey, she returned to her apartment; it was furnished with the most luxurious elegance, yet she could not rest within it. Conscience already told her, if Malvina died, she must consider herself her murderer: her pale and woe-worn image seemed still before her: a cold terror oppressed her heart, which the terrors of the night augmented. The tempest shook the battlements of the abbey; and the wind howled through the galleries, like the moan of some wandering spirit of the pile, bewailing the fate of one of its fairest daughters.”
― Regina Maria Roche, The Children of the Abbey

“O Lord, to know that one is not allowed to be afraid; it is the most frightening thing of all.”
― A.J. West, The Spirit Engineer

“We fear the dead, when really, we ought to be far more afraid of the living.”
― A.J.West, The Spirit Engineer

“There was something so strange in all this, something so weird and impossible to imagine, that there grew on me a sense of my being in some way the sport of opposite forces - the mere vague idea of which seemed in a way to paralyse me. I was certainly under some form of mysterious protection. From a distant country had come, in the very nick of time, a message that took me out of the danger of the snow-sleep and the jaws of the wolf.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula's Guest

“How strange the heart was, capable of making you lose your head over a monster.”
― Aran Maza, Garden Of Shadows

“...Leaning on her maid, she stole through the winding galleries, and lightly descending the stairs, entered the long hall, which terminated in a dark arched passage that opened into the chapel. This was a wild and gloomy structure: beneath it were the vaults which contained the ancestors of the earl of Dunreath, whose deeds and titles were enumerated on gothic monuments: their dust-covered banners waving around in sullen dignity to the rude gale, which found admittance through the broken windows. The light which the maid held produced deep shadows, that heightened the solemnity of the place.”
― Regina Maria Roche, The Children of the Abbey

“large lack dogs can be a dark omen, did you know that? they foretell death, just like banshees do, and they follow you, and if you but look at them in the eye you are condemned.
still i´d rather see a dog when the time comes. the soft fur and the glassy eyes and the friendly bark of a playful hound, to take me gently to the realms of heaven.”
― Oscar de Muriel, A Mask of Shadows

“You know something. Life really is too short. We need to focus on the beautiful things in life, not its miseries. Life’s-end for one person doesn’t define them. It’s the memories that they make while they’re alive.”
― T.H. Cini, In Amongst the Cornfields and Other Stories

“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.”
― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebeca

“If he be Mr. Hyde, 'he had thought, 'I shall be Mr. Seek.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

“I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter desperation of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the afterdream of the reveller upon opium—the bitter lapse into everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodelled and inverted images of the grey sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“If a tree fell alone in the woods and no one was around to hear it, did it really make a sound?
She was certain, then, that her scream went unheard.”
― Ashton Morgan, De Novo

“Cecilia came whirling back into his chest, his eyes catching her own. They were a strange silver, a colour like smoke, the only trail that proves the heat of the flame. His eyes held no malice, nor fury, the only fervor a desire she couldn’t place.”
― Ashton Morgan, De Novo

“Peter was fascinated by this strange man who emerged from the shed. He couldn’t see him, but he could hear his low grunts and the rustling of the stalks as he passed.”
― T.H. Cini, In Amongst the Cornfields and Other Stories

“I stood still for a moment, attending carefully when I saw the same figure again in front of the church, heading towards the corners. I lurched forward but tripped. I then saw black.”
― T.H. Cini, In Amongst the Cornfields and Other Stories

“It was only the second time they had made love at her place. Andrew had identified the hibiscus flower in her mystery box and requested the site of their lovemaking. Ever since she’d told him about her father’s reptile room, he’d wanted to do her there. He’d imagined that fornicating in the middle of a room walled with vivariums full of lizards and snakes with phallic bodies and flickering tongues would be highly arousing,”
― Cameron Trost, The Animal Inside: A Collection of Strange Tales

“The darkness and the night made her see monsters where there were only shadows, screams where a creaking door opened, whispers where the wind swayed.”
― Aran Maza, Garden Of Shadows

“All spirits come out at night, they like the dark, they hide in the shadows.”
― Aran Maza, Garden Of Shadows

“Algo que não pode ser tão facilmente erradicado é, talvez, o maior dos medos vitorianos: o de que ao procurar pelo reflexo do vampiro, esse Outro, no espelho, irás encontrá-lo rastejando dentro de ti.”
― Thiago Sardenberg, O Vampiro à Sombra do Mal: A Fluidez do Lugar da Figura Mítica na Literatura

“O lócus que tradicionalmente habita o vampiro, essencialmente noturno, também perpassa o desconhecido: não tememos a escuridão apenas devido à falta de estímulos visuais que nos priva da percepção de possíveis ameaças, mas também porque ela dá vida e amplifica nossos próprios medos, concretizando no invisível aquilo que nos perturba no íntimo.
Assim, se a noite é esse “espaço-tempo em que o terror se sente à vontade”, os terrores que nas sombras me alucinam poderão ser vastamente distintos dos teus, mesmo que juntos a desbravemos.”
― Thiago Sardenberg, À Noite não Restariam Rosas: A Ameaça Epidêmica em Narrativas Vampirescas

“Impregnadas nas diferentes ameaças epidêmicas impostas pelos vampiros, estão inquietações que perpassam esse olhar crítico para as escolhas que nós, humanos, estamos continuamente fazendo. Se o vampiro ficcional, esse monstro que tanto nos revela e adverte sobre nós mesmos, insiste de maneira tão enfática no viés pandêmico-apocalíptico na contemporaneidade, talvez seja pelo inconveniente fato de que se torna cada vez mais evidente que “o surto mais grave no planeta Terra é o da espécie Homo sapiens” e que, caso continuemos a fazer as mesmas escolhas equivocadas, teremos que lidar com a o fato de que “eis a verdade em relação aos surtos: eles acabam”.”
― Thiago Sardenberg, À Noite não Restariam Rosas: A Ameaça Epidêmica em Narrativas Vampirescas

“Narrativas como Apocalipse V e The Passage evidenciam o papel da humanidade na perturbação e desintegração de ecossistemas, fatores que acabam por favorecer a criação de cenários pandêmicos, no que somos expostos a novos patógenos que se encontravam placidamente contidos, e que podem ser responsáveis pela emergência (ou reemergência) de doenças infecciosas potencialmente perigosas.”
― Thiago Sardenberg, À Noite não Restariam Rosas: A Ameaça Epidêmica em Narrativas Vampirescas

“Nas artes, afinal, o vampirismo é como que endêmico — os surtos que retratam aparecem e então se tornam latentes por tempo indeterminado; quando os esquecemos ou julgamos tê-los superado, eis que reaparecem, seus monstros-vampiros funcionando como personificações de uma nova “variante” bem preparada para desarmar as defesas que construímos.”
― Thiago Sardenberg, À Noite não Restariam Rosas: A Ameaça Epidêmica em Narrativas Vampirescas